Muslims burn and destroy the central church located in Khartoum’s Al-Jerif neighbourhood. The Sudan Presbyterian Evangelical Church, which has a congregation partly comprised of Southerners, is part of a larger compound that houses a number of other services, including a school. The structure was left in a shambles after Muslim mobs by the hundreds stormed the premises on Saturday, April 21. Whole rooms were ransacked, materials looted and part of the grounds set ablaze. This is Islam.

This ABC report equivocates between the north and south when it is the Islamic north, the aggressor, that has been persecuting, enslaving and slaughtering the South for decades, mirroring all of the jihad wars across the world. The moral equivocation of mainstream media.

A Muslim mob set ablaze a Catholic church frequented by Southern Sudanese in the capital Khartoum, witnesses and media reports said on Sunday.

The church in Khartoum's Al-Jiraif district was built on a disputed plot of land, but the Saturday night incident appeared to be part of the fallout from ongoing hostilities between Sudan and South Sudan over control of an oil town on their ill-defined border.

Sudan and South Sudan have been drawing closer to a full-scale war in recent months over the unresolved issues of sharing oil revenues and the disputed border.

Last week, South Sudanese troops seized Heglig, which the southerners call Panthou, sending Sudanese troops fleeing. The Khartoum government later claimed to have regained control of the town.

The witnesses and several newspapers said a mob of several hundred shouting insults at southerners torched the church. Fire engines could not put out the fire, they said.

One newspaper, Al-Sahafah, said the church was part of a complex that included a school and dormitories. Ethiopian refugees living in the Sudanese capital also used the church.

The mostly Christian and animist South Sudan seceded from Sudan in 2011, some six years after a peace deal ended more than two decades of war between the two sides. Tens of thousands of southerners remain in Sudan, a legacy of the civil war that drove hundreds of thousands to seek relative safety in the north of what was then a single Sudanese nation.

Vice President Ali Osman Taha rejected suggestions by South Sudan for the deployment of international forces in Heglig, saying in a television interview that the area was internationally recognized as Sudanese territory.

After millions of were slaughtered in the jihad against Darfur and Southern Sudan by the Islamic North, the South voted for their freedom, and got it! Did you really think the Islamic supremacists in Northern Sudan were going to accept the will of the people and let the South live free?

The vicious jihadist President of Northern Sudan has declared war on the newly free South and "accused the South of implementing the agenda of foreign countries which backed its secession bid, at the expense of its own people." 99% of the people of Southern Sudan voted for secession. That's the real 99%.

Flashback to vote: "Everyone is drunk with happiness. People in Southern Sudan are in unity. We are one. Everyone is saying 'Hallelujah! Free at last!'" Simon Deng.

Bashir is a bloodthirsty savage. And the West must take a stand to defeat jihad wherever and whenever it tries to impose iot bloody reign on free people.

Obama should condemn this fierce jihad and aid the South immediately, but don't hold your breath.

Sudan’s president, Omar al-Bashir, Thursday declared war on South Sudan, vowing to topple its government.

The move comes after Sudan’s parliament passed a resolution branding South Sudan’s ruling party an enemy that “must be fought until it is defeated.”

Sudan and South Sudan are embroiled in the worst clashes along their poorly defined border since the secession of the South last summer. The United Nations Security Council is considering sanctions on both countries in an attempt to end the violence, and demanded South Sudanese forces withdraw from their occupation of the 60,000-barrels-a-day oil field Heglig oil field. Both countries continue to ignore calls to end the fighting.

On a visit Thursday to the oil-rich, restive border state of South Kordofan, Bashir rallied his troops, which are now engaged on three fronts with South Sudan.

“Heglig isn’t the end, it is the beginning, and we shall go all the way to [South Sudanese capital] Juba,” Bashir told a rally.

South Sudan’s army spokesman, Col. Philip Aguer, dismissed Bashir’s threat, saying that the South’s army would keep Sudan’s aggression at bay.

“If they didn’t defeat us when we were a green army, how will they defeat us now,” he said.

Sudan and South Sudan have been at odds for 20 years, a time that included two civil wars believed to have claimed the lives of more than two million people. The South’s secession left several issues unresolved, including how to share oil revenue and production between the reserve-rich South and the north, center of refineries, ports and other infrastructure.

Battles around Heglig continued Thursday, with Sudanese planes continuing aerial bombardments, damaging oil wells and buildings, according to Col. Aguer. South Sudan said it repulsed a Sudanese ground attack on Heglig Wednesday evening, forcing Sudanese troops to retreat to Kersana, some 40 kilometers north of the oil field.

Troops also engaged around Bahr el Ghazal and South Sudan captured a base used by Sudan to train militias. These claims couldn’t be verified independently. Both countries accuse each other of sponsoring proxy rebels in the others territory.

Bashir accuses the South of implementing the agenda of foreign countries which backed its secession bid, at the expense of its own people.

South Sudan has called for talks to end the current dispute, with Information Minister Barnaba Benjamin saying that its people would never look at Sudan as its enemy due to their “long history and long common border.”

Many say hard-liners with a history of taking rigid negotiating positions seem to be running the show in both Sudan and South Sudan, a situation that may stymie attempts for a peaceful settlement of post secession disputes.

But no worries. Everyone knows that Sharia is benign and fully compatible with freedom and humane values. The Sudanese government is just misunderstanding it. "Southern Sudanese Christians Fear Forced Repatriation," from Compass Direct News, April 6:

JUBA, South Sudan, April 6 (CDN) — Christians from South Sudan who have until Easter Sunday (April 8) to try to become citizens of Sudan or be deported fear authorities will use the occasion to rid the country of Christianity, church leaders said.

More than 500,000 citizens of southern ethnic origin who have been living in Sudan for decades – some of them born there – will be considered foreigners after Sunday. Human rights organizations have called on Khartoum to grant them more time to either leave or apply for citizenship.

Christian leaders expressed concern that local media such as the daily Al Intibaha newspaper have been stoking hatred against predominantly Christian southern Sudanese, describing them as “cancer cells in the body of Sudan, the land of the Arab and Islam,” and calling on the government to deport them.

“The local media are becoming very hostile toward us who are still in the north,” one Christian told Compass by phone on condition of anonymity.

Gov. Ahmad Abbass of Sennar state in central Sudan vowed to deport southern Sudanese from his state “without regret,” according to Alsahafa, an Arabic daily. Banners have appeared in Khartoum streets calling on the government and Muslims in general to harass and expel southern Sudanese, some of whom are also Muslims.

“Why are they still here? The government should expel them from the country,” one banner asserts....

As Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir has pledged to base the new Sudan more deeply on sharia (Islamic law), ethnic southerners are faced with a difficult choice, Elizabeth Kendal writes in the Religious Liberty Prayer Bulletin.

“The message essentially is this: Submit to sharia or get out,” she writes. “Churches may well be targeted immediately and aggressively, starting 9 April. All across the Sudan, churches have been emptying as ethnic southerners – including those born and raised in the north – flee south. This could eventually become a pretext for closing them.”

At the same time, police have been mistreating some of the more than 113,000 southern Sudanese who are living in open spaces in Khartoum after having fled conflict in South Sudan. Officers have removed their make-shift housing, including temporary latrines, according to Jovana Luka, deputy chairperson of the Relief and Rehabilitation Commission in South Sudan, who recently returned from Khartoum....

"Crush them. Don't bring them back alive. Beat them raw. Are you ready?"

Northern Sudan is Islamic. After decades of jihad genocide and unspeakable horrors on the Southern Sudanese (Black Christians, Animist, secular Muslims) and two million slaughtered, southern Sudan voted for their independence last year from the Muslim north: "99% Vote for Independence in Southern Sudan: "Free at Last!"

Despite this, the Muslim North has continued to wage war against the South. You knew when the Christian South Sudan voted for freedom (secession) from the Islamic North Sudan that the Muslims would wage war against the Christians and non-Muslims in the South. And so they have.

How many millions of Christians, animists, and black moderate muslims have to be slaughtered in the jihadi war in Sudan before the international community takes its head out of the caliphate's culo and stands against this mindless slaughter for allah?

AFRICA | Fresh attacks in South Sudan—including raids on a Samaritan’s Purse refugee camp—could signal a return to war |

As UN workers prepared to unload a helicopter full of food for more than 20,000 refugees in a camp in South Sudan Thursday, a series of horrifying thuds erupted, as a large plane swooped overhead, dropping bombs.

Witnesses say the plane dropped at least four bombs, with one landing in the yard of a makeshift school for 300 children gathered for an afternoon class. Thankfully, the explosive didn’t detonate. But other bombs did explode, and a local official reported at least 12 deaths.

The Christian aid group Samaritan’s Purse reported that its workers in the camp were safe after Thursday’s attack. The relief agency manages distribution of food and other supplies in the sprawling refugee camp. (The area is so remote and swampy, aid workers airdropped supplies to the refugees until Samaritan’s Purse cleared a landing strip.)

Authorities believe that military planes from Northern Sudan executed the bombardment on the Yida camp near the border with South Sudan. The two countries formally separated when South Sudan declared its independence on July 9. But conflicts over the disputed North-South border have left nearly 230,000 South Sudanese residents fleeing attacks from a Northern government determined to maintain control of the oil-rich borderlands.

Thousands of those refugees have fled to camps in South Sudan and Ethiopia, including the freshly attacked Yida camp some 10 miles south of the border. By Thursday afternoon, White House officials called the bombing “outrageous,” and demanded that Sudan’s government cease attacks on its southern neighbor.

It was the second bombing in less than a week. Three days earlier, military planes bombed the South Sudanese town of Queffa, killing at least seven. The government of Northern Sudan has accused South Sudan of arming rebels near the border, but South Sudanese President Salva Kiir said the allegations are an excuse for the north to attack.

“All these accusations are actually a prelude from Khartoum to justify their pending actions against South Sudan,” he said. “When Bashir [the president of Sudan] invades South Sudan, he will say he took the action to revenge what was being done to him.”

A U.S.-based satellite monitoring group expressed growing concerns over a widening campaign against South Sudan on Friday: The Satellite Sentinel Project reported that aerial photos show Sudanese forces enhancing their bases near the North-South border. Those enhancements include adding three helicopter gunships and an Antonov—the plane that witnesses described after Thursday’s attack.

Leonard Leo of the Washington, D.C.-based United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) condemned the recent attacks and called the bombings “clearly an outgrowth of Sudan’s hostility against religious freedom.” During 20 years of civil war that spanned 1983 to 2005, the Muslim-based government in the North tried to force the predominantly Christian South to submit to Islamic law.

Soon after Southern Sudan became a member of the international community, there have come reports of mass graves. "We now have ... satellite confirmation of ethnically targeted extermination efforts." The thinking is that the Islamic Khartoum government is carrying out targeted killings just like those in Darfur over the last decade.

...house-to-house searches for supporters of the South Sudan military, and executions on the street.

The killers dressed as "Red Crescent workers." That's what they do. In Gaza, the Muslims use UN ambulances.

Baruch hashem! Pray for this fledging state newly freed from the decades-long slaughter and ethnic cleansing of jihad from the Islamic north.

IsraAID sends aid to South Sudan

Humanitarian group, supported by UJA Federation of Greater Toronto and AJC, to deliver vital food and medicines to help people of new African country on behalf of Israeli and Jewish people

IsraAID: The Israel Forum for International Humanitarian Aid, in partnership with Operation Blessing and the government of Sudan, and supported by UJA Federation of Greater Toronto, the American Jewish Committee and local agencies on the ground, will be sending a humanitarian aid cargo, including vital foods and medicines, to assist the people of South Sudan on behalf of the Israeli and Jewish people.

South Sudan, which became a nation on Saturday, has already been recognized by the government of Israel. Relations between Israel and South Sudan, with its large Christian population, are expected to be very warm. The situation in South Sudan is harsh. Illiteracy reaches nearly 90%, there is little or no infrastructure in the country, and most of its residents have no access to basic clean water. In recent months over 117,000 people were displaced and almost 1,400 killed following the conflict between the South and the North.

In addition to the initial aid shipment, the IsraAID teams have already begun assessing longer term needs on the ground for a more extensive aid mission that would benefit children, women and the elderly.

“As a small and relatively newborn country Israel has gained experience in various specialties, such as water, agriculture, post traumatic stress syndrome, education, migration and others that would be valuable to the people of South Sudan who are now building their country. It is our mission, consistent with Jewish values, to reach out to our new friends in any way we can,” said Shachar Zahavi, founding director of IsraAID.

Did we really believe the Muslims would let the Christians live in peace after independence was declared in South Sudan? They slaughtered over two million southern Sudanese, and still their bloodlust is not slaked.

The Republic of South Sudan is independent today. But the jihad against it is sure not to let up. This new nation deserves the support of all free nations. "Jihad In Sudan Redux," from Christian News Today, July 9:

On July 9, the mostly Christian South Sudan will legally and officially separate from the Muslim north and become a new, independent and free country. Fearing loss of its iron clad grip of other non-Arab regions in the north, whose people likely envy the freedoms won by the South, Arab/Islamist leaders in Khartoum have launched a military assault on the Nuba Mountains, a mixed Christian, animist and Muslim region. Reports from the area are gruesomely reminiscent of the decades-long assault Khartoum waged on the South. These include forced conversions to Islam, mass displacement, bombing of civilians and mass slaughter.

Anticipating the effects of Christians winning freedom from his rule already in December of 2010 Sudan's President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, who is indicted by the International Criminal Court for genocide and crimes against humanity, laid out a vision for the future of his nation:

"If south Sudan secedes, we will change the constitution and at that time there will be no time to speak of diversity of culture and ethnicity... Sharia (Islamic law) and Islam will be the main source for the constitution, Islam the official religion and Arabic the official language", he told a group of supporters.

Al-Bashir made his statement as the people of Southern Sudan were preparing to vote in the referendum that secured their imminent independence. With less than a week left before South secedes, al-Bashir is determined to fulfill his promise not by changing the constitution, but through murder and ethnic cleansing.

After concluding a military occupation of the disputed border region of Abyei, which resulted in the expulsion of more than 100,000 (non-Arabs, mostly from the Dinka tribe), Sudanese army and government-sponsored Arab militias attacked the African tribes of Nuba Mountains, a region situated in the Northern state of Southern Kordofan. Reports indicate indiscriminate bombings of civilians and a systematic killing of the black-skinned Nuba, which forced estimated 100,000 to abandon their homes. One report described "door to door executions of completely innocent and defenseless civilians, often by throat cutting." Another suggested the government might be using chemical weapons. The Bishop of Nuba Mountains described the events as genocide: "Once again we are facing the nightmare of genocide of our people in a final attempt to erase our culture and society from the face of the earth." A well-respected Sudan analyst concurred.

Nuba embody the diversity of culture and religion that al-Bashir wants to destroy. Numbering some 1.5 million, Nuba people are Christians, Muslims and the followers of traditional faiths. It is not uncommon to find the adherents of all faiths within a single family. Comprising from more than fifty tribes and speaking an equal number of languages, the Nuba have an incredibly diverse culture.

You knew when the Christian South Sudan voted for freedom (secession) from the Islamic North Sudan that the Muslims would wage war against the Christians and non-Muslims in the South. And so they have.

The referendum on independence (initiated by George W. Bush) came as a result of the jihadic genocide of non-Muslims in Sudan. But the millions slaughtered in Darfur and Sudan have not slaked the bloodlust of the jihadi government in Khartoum.

Armed men burned and looted the flashpoint town of Abyei yesterday after days of violence involving northern and southern troops in the disputed region. Southern Sudan's military said it would defend its territory, while an Arab [Muslim] herdsman said his tribe is in Abyei to stay, an indication Sudan's peace could crumble before the south's July independence.

Violence flared late last week in Abyei, a no man's land between north and south Sudan. Southern Sudan voted in January to secede from the south, and the region becomes an independent country on July 9. But violence in Abyei is overshadowing the march toward independence.

The UN mission in Sudan said armed elements were burning and looting in Abyei and said the northern Sudanese Armed Forces must fulfill their responsibility to intervene to "stop these criminal acts."

In photos provided by the UN, the town appeared deserted except for what appeared to be looters. Some huts appeared to be ablaze; smoke billowed from others. Looters were seen roaming the streets, carrying rifles. Some carried suitcases. Others pulled carts carrying mats, pots and pans, sacks of grain and even bed frames.

Officials in the north indicated that the two sides could be brought back from the brink even as the south said it would respond with force if its territory is breached. A powerful Sudanese Arab tribal chief, meanwhile, said his tribesmen have entered the area with other Arab tribes, and that "Abyei is a northern town."

But it says the response by the Khartoum government - seizing much of the disputed Abyei region including the town of Abyei - was “extremely disproportionate” and threatens the country’s north-south peace accord, as well as the normalization of U.S. ties with Khartoum.

The status of oil-rich Abyei has been the main outstanding issue in the implementation of the country’s 2005 north-south peace process, which is due to culminate July 9th with independence for the southern Sudan.

The UN, driven by the OIC (Organization of the Islamic Conference), is blaming the Christian South as well:

U.S. Special Envoy for Sudan Princeton Lyman told reporters the Sudanese military move is a “very serious violation” of the country’s Comprehensive Peace Accord, known as the CPA. He said urgent action by Sudanese President Omar el-Bashir and southern leader Salva Kiir is needed to put the process back on track.

“We think those forces should be withdrawn," said Lyman. "The civilian administration which President Bashir unilaterally dissolved should be recreated. And we have urged that President Bashir and Vice President Kiir, who is head of the southern Sudan administration, immediately come together and calm the situation down, and restore the level of cooperation they talked about after the January 9th referendum.”

The envoy said the Abyei crisis has prompted intensive U.S. diplomacy, including calls to Sudanese Vice President Ali Osman Taha and Salva Kiir by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Lyman said he will leave for Sudan later this week for his second visit there this month.

He said the process of fully normalizing U.S. relations with the Khartoum government, which the Obama administration has held out as a reward for CPA implementation, cannot go forward under current circumstances.

“We had started the process, as you know, of looking at how to take them off the list of state sponsors of terrorism," he said. "We have been working with the World Bank and others on the debt situation. We have been looking at the prospect of naming a full ambassador after July 9th in Khartoum. All of these are important steps in normalization. They cannot be fulfilled if we do not have a successful CPA.”

U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry warned that Sudan is now, in his words, “ominously close to the precipice of war.

His concerns about wider fighting are shared by Sudan expert Jon Temin of the United States Institute of Peace, who said the longer the Abyei issue remains unresolved, the greater the potential for violence.

“It is clearly a significant setback," he said. "And it comes just a few weeks before southern Sudanese secession is scheduled to happen on July 9. And it really draws into question whether the remaining weeks before that secession happens is going to be peaceful and whether the parties are going to be able to make progress on the very critical negotiations concerning how they are going to split and the details of that split and what is going to happen to Abiyeh after they split.”

Temin said there is a limit to what condemnation and prodding by the United States and others can achieve, and that the Sudanese parties have to decide if they want a resolution. He said at the moment, it does not appear that they do.

Photo: Sudanese celebrate following the announcement of the preliminary results in the Southern Sudan referendum in Juba. The leader of South Sudan, Salva Kiir, said Monday he looked forward to the international community confirming his region's referendum in which voters overwhelmingly chose to secede from the north.… Read more »

Simon Deng's calls from Sudan are the highlight of my day. Last week Simon called ecstatic at the preliminary results of the freedom referendum. Sudan is the one glimmer of hope in a world surrendering to Islamic supremacism. Southern Sudan fought back, and a record 99.6% voted for independence from the Muslim North. "Free at Last!" "Thank G-d Almighty!" "We Have a Nation" Today, he called. It is indeed official.

"Everyone is drunk with happiness. People in Southern Sudan are in unity. We are one. Everyone is saying 'Hallelujah! Free at last!'" Simon Deng.

"If you don't believe in miracles, look to Southern Sudan. Everyone in Southern Sudan is smiling. Everyone. The country is smiling. They will be never be as happy as they are today. We are free from the victimization and islamization of the North."

"We had to sacrifice four million lives."

When Simon called me last week in advance of the official results, he could hardly contain his joy. Like a proud papa, "a nation is born!"

"We thank every person in the world who has been there emotionally, who consoled us, who stood with us, who has supported Southern Sudan, who have stood with and those who stood in sympathy with the people of Sudan, we thank you. We thank everybody. We the people of Southern Sudan have no way to thank people of good will, who opened their doors to refugees, who opened their wallet to us, we thank you.

"Everyone is anxious to receive the new baby."

"And the last thing we are asking people and free nations of the world -- recognize the child that is going to be born. Be there for that child. Support that child. When the child falls down, help that child stand up. Help the child grow. Eventually we will be strong and run like a gazelle."

When I asked Simon if he thought there would be trouble, He said "Never, G-d is with us. They sacrificed, but didnt lose hope. 4 million lives perished, but they believed in tomorrow. Tomorrow is now. We have a nation."

Interesting how the major media outlets aren't covering this historic, unprecedented vote for freedom. The South has freed itself from the Islamic tyranny of the north.

Thousands poured onto the streets of the state capital Wau yesterday following the announcement of the preliminary results of the recently-concluded Southern Sudan Referendum.

The euphoric residents sang and danced from street to street celebrating the announcement by the Southern Sudan Referendum Commission that 99.6 percent of South Sudanese had voted for the separation of the semi-autonomous region. “We have from today honoured our freedom fighters as we have waited for this day for too long”, said an unidentified middle-aged man from a top a pick-up vehicle.

The residents joined their compatriots across South Sudan even as the State Governor Rizik Zackaria Hassan called for calm until the final results of the Southern Sudan Referendum results are announced on February 14.

Outside a shop, a banner with the inscription: The Republic of South Sudan caught the attention of many as it clearly emphasised the importance of the announcement.

“We are very happy and proud following the preliminary announcement today which shows that we have separated from the Arabs who have been sitting on the Southerners for a long time”, said Cirillo Albino who spent the day celebrating with his family at his home in Wau.

Meanwhile, residents of Lakes State received news of the results with joy following days of anxiety over the fate of the semi-autonomous region.

The State Governor Chol Tong Mayay urged the state residents to stay calm until the final results are released in Khartoum.

While welcoming the announcement of the preliminary results, Mayay said the outcome fulfilled the wishes of South Sudanese who have suffered greatly at the hands of the Khartoum government.

"Everyone is drunk with happiness. People in Southern Sudan are in unity. We are one. Everyone is saying 'Hallelujah! Free at last!'" Simon Deng, moments ago.

A jubilant Simon Deng rang me from Southern Sudan just a few moments ago. The news was nothing short of a miracle. A record 99% of the Southern Sudanese people came out and voted for independence. They are free. The official results of the vote will be announced this weekend.

Simon was ebullient on the phone. If I could have frozen one moment in time, it would have been that.

What a moment! Simon was laughing. It was the sound of the divine. "If you don't believe in miracles, look to Southern Sudan. Everyone in Southern Sudan is smiling. Everyone. The country is smiling. They will be never be as happy as they are today. We are free from the victimization and islamization of the North."

In its 54-year history, Sudan has suffered from civil war between the north and south for 39 years. Some 200,000 south Sudanese were kidnapped into slavery. Two million Sudanese have died in the wars. Four million have become refugees. But the fact is that with the West openly supporting southern Sudanese independence, a new war's consequences will not be limited to Sudan itself. Therefore it is worth considering why such a war is all but certain and what southern Sudanese independence means for the region and the world.

There were two main reasons that Bashir agreed to sign the peace treaty with the south Sudanese in 2005. First, his forces had lost the civil war. The south was already effectively independent.

The second reason Bashir agreed to a deal that would give eventual independence to the oil-rich south is because he feared the US.

In 2004, led by then president George W. Bush, the US cast a giant shadow throughout the world. The US military's lightning overthrow of Saddam Hussein's regime frightened US foes and encouraged US allies. The democratic wave revolutions in Ukraine, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan and Lebanon were all fuelled by the world's belief in US's willingness to use its power to defeat its foes.

Bashir's regime is closely linked to al-Qaida, which he hosted from 1989 until 1995.

When the US demanded that he accept the south's victory, he probably didn't believe he could refuse. (Glick here.)

"Everyone is drunk with happiness. People in Southern Sudan are in unity. We are one. Everyone is saying 'hallelujah, Free at last!'"

"We thank every person in the world who has been there emotionally, who consoled us, who stood with us, who has supported Southern Sudan, who have stood with and those who stood in sympathy with the people of Sudan, we thank you. We thank everybody. We the people of Southern Sudan have no way to thank people of good will, who opened their doors to refugees, who opened their wallet to us, we thank you.

"Everyone is anxious to receive the new baby."

"And the last thing we are asking people and free nations of the world -- recognize the child that is going to be born. Be there for that child. Support that child. When the child falls down, help that child stand up. Help the child grow. Eventually we will be strong and run like a gazelle."

When I asked Simon if he thought there would be trouble, He said "Never, G-d is with us. They sacrificed, but didnt lose hope. 4 million lives perished, but they believed in tomorrow. Tomorrow is now. We have a nation."

"Nobody could believe how everybody voted. 99% turnout."

"The Northern Sudanese have already recognized the results of the vote." The turnout was overwhelming.

"The unity was solid, like a rock."

"And for anybody in the world who doesn't believe in hope, please hear it from us, keep hope alive."

The cry for freedom and results of this vote will reverberate around the world.

CBC Beginning Sunday, Jan. 9, the people of Southern Sudan will vote in a referendum on independence. The referendum is part of the 2005 peace agreement between the government of Sudan and southern rebels that ended a civil war that began in 1983.

There are two symbols on the referendum ballot — one hand up for "separation" and two clenched hands clenched for "unity." The voters are expected to choose separation, an option the government says it will accept.

The independent Southern Sudan Referendum Commission is conducting the referendum. Besides Sudan, registered voters can take part in Canada, Egypt, Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, Australia, Britain and the United States. Calgary and Toronto are the Canadian cities where voting takes place.

Voting continues until Jan. 15.

A separate referendum was also supposed to be held in the oil-rich region of Abyei, which lies between Southern Sudan and northern Sudan. It has been postponed because of instability in the region. The vote in Abyei is on which part of Sudan to join if Southern Sudan votes for independence.

JUBA, Sudan – The referendum is known as "The Final Walk to Freedom" — a symbolic journey for those who fought in decades of war, for villagers whose homes were bombed, and for orphans who ended up in U.S. communities as the Lost Boys of Sudan.

The weeklong independence balloting starts Sunday for the southern third of Sudan — Africa's biggest country — on whether to draw a border between the north, which is mostly Arab and Muslim, and the south, populated mostly by blacks who are Christian or animist.

For southern Sudanese like Atem Yak, who survived war, lived amid dire poverty and endured discrimination, it has been a long time coming.

Yak was 5 when Sudan gained independence from Britain in 1956. Yak, now 60, remembers when two dozen chiefs died in attacks in his home village of Kongor in the 1960s. In Sudan's capital, Khartoum, Yak's deep black African skin incited mistreatment.

"I never saw the flag of Sudan as something I owed allegiance to," he said. "The national anthem never represented my will. So I will not shed tears when Sudan breaks into two, provided that this is done peacefully. I will be happy."

Southerners in Juba were not just happy — they were ecstatic Friday as they anticipated the vote. Wearing feathers and grasping ceremonial carved sticks, they danced on dirt streets in a growing city that will be the south's future capital if the referendum passes. They pounded on drums and sang chants for independence.

Southern Sudanese will cast simple, illustrated ballots at polling stations under thatched roof shelters in the remote and impoverished countryside and near newly paved roads in Juba, a city of simple concrete houses and mud huts that got its first paved roads only in recent years.

Yak is educated and wealthy enough to own a car, a rarity in a region where half the people rely on food aid, only 15 percent can read and children die for want of basic medicine. Yak sees the referendum as an opportunity for the African residents of Sudan, who are often denied resources in favor of northern Arabs.

A sharp economic divide lies between the regions, with infrastructure development and government programs heavily weighted to the north. Only 2 percent of southerners complete primary school while 21 percent in the north do. The south, which is the size of France, has only 30 miles (50 kilometers) of paved roads. The north has 2,200 miles (3,600 kilometers).

The top U.S. official in Southern Sudan, Barrie Walkley, said the lack of paved roads made getting polling materials to the sites "remarkably difficult," and that helicopters and motorcycles were used. People also carried the material over long stretches in the many areas where no roads exist.

The U.S. has made the referendum a foreign policy priority and has offered to remove Sudan from the list of state sponsors of terror if Khartoum doesn't hinder the vote, which would create the world's newest country.

The 1983-2005 civil war killed an estimated 2 million people and left many others missing one or more limbs. The presence of these victims throughout the south is a testament to the horrors of the conflict.

More than 1 million people headed north to escape the fighting, and about 3,800 war orphans known as the Lost Boys of Sudan resettled in the U.S. Some of those orphans will join thousands of other Sudanese to vote at polling sites set up in eight U.S. cities.

Dolly Odwong, 45, remembers Russian-made planes bombing the southern capital, which mostly held women and children because the men were out fighting.

"The coming generation will not feel the way we felt. We don't want them running the way we were running and hiding, because when the war started everybody had to run and hide," Odwong said. "Life was very difficult, and people were saying 'God, why us?' That was the question. So now we are thinking that God has heard our prayers. And he is saying 'You people are going to be free.'"

Choosing secession, the south's ruling party tells voters in a pamphlet, will "fulfill the dreams and aspirations of your forefathers, heroes, heroines and martyrs who died in the struggle for freedom."

For the referendum to pass, a simple majority must vote for independence and at least 60 percent of the 3.9 million registered voters must cast ballots.

"Like all other observers I think the referendum will likely produce an overwhelming vote for secession," said Zach Vertin, a Southern Sudan analyst for the International Crisis Group.

If the referendum passes, much work remains. The north and south must reach agreements on the distribution of oil revenues, rights to the White Nile, official borders and citizenship rights. Aid groups fear that southerners living in the north and northerners living in the south will face harassment and abuse.

"At this point, it appears the referendum itself might come off relatively peacefully," said Mike Abramowitz, who leads the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum's genocide prevention efforts. "But this is just a first step. This remains a fragile and volatile situation, and the danger will come in the months ahead as the world turns its attention to other matters."

For his part, Yak agrees that "The Final Walk to Freedom" will open a new path on which the quality of life for southerners can be improved as they take command of their own future.

"When you are free ... it should be a means to promote the welfare of others," Yak said. "To me, independence is not an end, it's a means. The struggle will start the day independence is declared."

US dispatches have cleared up one of the most baffling weapons affairs of the recent past. In 2008, pirates hijacked a ship full of tanks and other military hardware. Kenya apparently intended to send the materiel on to Southern Sudan. But they were unprepared for the US reaction.

Sometimes things get so bad they're almost funny. Take, for example, when criminals hold up arms traffickers, and when politicians subsequently lie and are abandoned by their supposed friends -- even though they secretly do the same thing themselves.

That's exactly what happened in the so-called Faina affair, one of the most baffling cases of weapons smuggling in recent memory -- an affair which has only now come to light due to the leaked US diplomatic cables.

On September 25, 2008, Somali pirates seized the Faina, a harmless-looking freighter, while it was making its way from Ukraine to the Kenyan port in Mombasa. But they were astonished when they looked in the holds and discovered what was on board: a treasure trove of weapons from Ukraine, including 33 T-72 tanks, each weighing about 40 tons -- enough to win a small war in Africa. The Somalian pirates thus blew the cover on a secret transaction that was even more sinister than their own activities.

After almost five months, the Faina was released after, it is thought, a $3.2 million (€2.4 million) ransom payment, and entered the port of Mombasa on February 12, 2009. The Kenyan government denied all speculation that the tanks were really destined for the autonomous government of predominantly Christian Southern Sudan, which rebels from the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) have been trying to break off from the Muslim northern part of the country. Kenya insisted that the tanks were meant for their own army.

Triggering US Sanctions

But the American documents now prove that that was false. While the Somali pirates were still holding the Faina captive, in faraway Washington, George W. Bush's second term as US president came to an end and Barack Obama moved into the White House.

On November 27, a cable classified as "secret" was sent to the US Embassy in Nairobi bearing clear instructions:

"Note to government of Kenya officials the United States government and the international community's concern with the potential destabilizing effect that the secret transfer of certain heavy military equipment and small arms and light weapons can generate in the region. Inform the government of Kenya ... that transfers of lethal military equipment to Sudan would trigger US sanctions against supplier governments."

On December 15 and 16, Ambassador Michael Ranneberger and senior US military officials based at the US Embassy in Kenya went to work. As he noted in a dispatch dated Dec. 16, 2009, Ranneberger encountered immediate resistance. During a meeting with Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga, he was informed "that the government of Kenya was committed to assisting GOSS (the government of Southern Sudan) and that there was 'intense pressure' from the GOSS to deliver the tanks." Odinga then went on to suggest that his government could deliver the tanks to Uganda, and that they could make their way into Sudan from there.

Ranneberger made his position to the prime minister clear: Washington would not tolerate such a deal. Delivering any tanks to Sudan -- whether via Uganda or any other country -- could result in sanctions against Kenya.

Finding Their Way to Sudan

The Kenyans were surprised. As they saw it, the Bush administration had always been kept informed about Kenya's arming of the SPLA rebels, had never opposed it and, in fact, had even contributed to it. When US military attaché David McNevin met with Jeremiah Kianga, the Kenyan chief of staff, and Philip Kameru, the head of Kenya's military intelligence, there was a tense exchange:

"Kameru mentioned that, in the government of Kenya's view, the tanks belong to the GOSS.... He added that (Kenyan) President (Mwai) Kibaki was personally very angry about this issue. During the meeting, Kianga commented that the government of Kenya was 'very confused' by our position … since the past transfers had been undertaken in consultation with the United States.... Kianga asked about the significance of what appeared to him to be a major policy reversal. … Kianga asked that the United States explain directly to the Government of Southern Sudan / Sudan People's Liberation Army why (they) are blocking the tank transfer."

Sudden Reversals

Ambassador Michael Ranneberger, who had retained his position even after the change in administrations, obviously didn't feel comfortable about the situation. In a carefully worded cable to Washington, he wrote:

"The government of Kenya is understandably confused, as transfer of these tanks, in their view, dove-tailed with the goals of the United States … (of) converting the SPLA from a guerrilla force to a small conventional force capable of defending Juba (the rebels' capital)."

Ranneberger also suggested that a bit of sympathy should be shown for the Kenyan position.

"Over the past two years, officials from Kenya's Ministry of Defense have shared full details of their engagement with the SPLA as we have shared details of our training program for the SPLA, including combat arms soldier training, under a May 2007 Presidential Directive. ... It is difficult to persuade the Kenyans that transferring this equipment ... will merit sanctions if completed when they are well aware that the United States is continuing military to military security sector reform assistance to the SPLA."

The American documents say nothing about what ultimately happened to the tanks. Experts believe they found their way to Southern Sudan.

Simon Deng called me earlier today and expressed alarm at the lack of leadership by the Obama administration concerning the dire situation in Sudan. Hillary Clinton called it a "ticking time bomb." Catastrophe is imminent. The Bush administration put the conflict on hold through the Comprehensive Peace Agreement and a vote for independence for the South, which has suffered unspeakable genocide at the hands of Muslims.

Sudan is weeks away from the scheduled start of a referendum that would lead to independence for the largely Christian south, and liberate it from the brutal violence and genocide exacted by the Muslim North.

"… whether they’re going to remain under the islamization and arabization, under enslavement, or they’re going to choose freedom for the first time. I, for one, don’t want to go back to being a slave again. I’ve tasted freedom. I’m proud today to stand in this country, as a free man, speaking to free people.

Of course they’re going to chose freedom. Because freedom is a God given right to all human beings. That being said, we, the people of South Sudan, for sixty years we went through a lot at the hands of the sitting governments in Khartoum. They slaughtered three and a half million South Sudanese. They enslaved thousands. They turned their arms and guns on the people in the Nuba Mountains. They turned their arms and guns on the people in the Blue Nile. And the world came to their senses by saying what happened in western Sudan in Darfur region is genocide."

Simon Deng will be traveling to Washington, DC this week and next week to "walk barefoot" through the Senate and talk to every Senator on Capitol Hill, so that they can't feign ignorance or pretend they were unaware of the coming massacre.

"The Secretary of State, a month ago, Hillary Clinton, said that the problem in South Sudan is a “ticking time bomb”. We don’t want to go back. We don’t want to go back to Islam. We don’t want to go back to enslavement. We don’t want to go back to arabization. We are proud as Africans in that continent. Sudan is the land of the blacks.

And that is why we don’t want to turn our backs to our brothers in Darfur. … after southern Sudan becomes independent next year we’re still going to be their voice because they’re being victimized the way we’re being victimized in that country. We’re going to Washington to ask our (United States) government that CPA that we talk about it is the legacy of the American government and, I’m speaking directly to President Obama, he was there with me when we talked about the issue in the South Sudan as a senator, shoulder to shoulder, when we talked about the Southern Sudan. I’m asking you, why are you distancing yourself from me, why are you distancing yourself from the issue of Sudan? Why are you putting heavyweights to be envoys here and envoys there, and you’re sending someone who has to learn on the job to be the envoy, knowing the magnitude of the problem in the Sudan? (more here.)"

Sudan's oil-producing south is 66 days away from the scheduled start of a politically sensitive referendum on whether to secede or stay part of Sudan, a vote promised in a 2005 peace deal that ended decades of civil war with the north.

Sudan's Muslim north and its south have still not agreed on the position of their shared border and analysts fear conflict could re-erupt in contested zones, some of which contain oil.

"There will not be UN peacekeepers on the buffer zone, it's unrealistic," Alain le Roy, UN Undersecretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations, told journalists shortly after concluding a meeting with representatives from the African Union and several other countries in the Ethiopian capital.

"The common borderline is too wide and (it) is not realistic to deploy troops," he added.

LONG WAR

Diplomats from the UN and the AU have announced that there will be months of "intensive" talks starting with a five-day meeting in Khartoum that begins Sunday aimed at reaching a consensus over the contested oil region of Abyei.

The U.N. has 10,000 peacekeepers stationed in Sudan, not counting its joint mission with the African Union in the western province of Darfur.

Most of the 10,000 are in the south and in three former civil war battle ground areas along the border. More than 2 million people died during the two-decade long war between Sudan's Islamic north and the south, where most are Christians or follow traditional religions.

Southern officials have accused Khartoum of arming militias to provoke conflict and demonstrate the south cannot govern itself ahead of the 2011 secession poll, scheduled for January 9.

Ambassador John Bolton explained it this way:

Although the conflict between Khartoum and Darfur has dominated the news in recent years, the proximate cause for dissolving the country now is the postponed but still simmering conflict between Mr. Bashir's Islamicist central government and the Christian and animist South. For decades, the South resisted Khartoum's efforts to impose its religious law on the entire country. Then, in 2005, the George W. Bush administration put this conflict on hold through the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA). While the CPA halted the ongoing genocide against the South, it was only a truce, not a lasting peace. Critical to gaining the South's agreement was the commitment to a referendum in January 2011, when the South could vote whether to remain part of Sudan or become independent.

That referendum is now the main focus. Neutral observers almost unanimously think a free and fair referendum would produce an overwhelming pro-independence vote. Those same observers think Mr. Bashir's government will do almost anything, including resorting to military force, to prevent losing the South and its huge oil and other natural resources.

[...]

Wrenching disagreements within the Obama administration are reinforcing the impression that our president is not willing to confront the Khartoum government. Mr. Obama's "open hand" policy toward rogue states, which has failed so notably with Iran and North Korea, is similarly failing in Sudan. Mr. Obama's special Sudan envoy, retired Air Force Gen. Scott Gration, has essentially cuddled up to Mr. Bashir, hoping he can thereby persuade Khartoum not to use military force. Mr. Obama's meetings with Southern Sudan leaders and others at the United Nations General Assembly's opening have not produced major breakthroughs.

Simon Deng called me earlier today and expressed alarm at the lack of leadership by the Obama administration concerning the dire situation in Sudan. Hillary Clinton called it a "ticking time bomb." Catastrophe is imminent. The Bush administration put the conflict on hold through the Comprehensive Peace Agreement and a vote for independence for the South, which has suffered unspeakable genocide at the hands of Muslims.

Sudan is 10 weeks away from the scheduled start of a referendum that would lead to independence for the largely Christian south, and liberate it from the brutal violence and genocide exacted by the Muslim North.

"… whether they’re going to remain under the islamization and arabization, under enslavement, or they’re going to choose freedom for the first time. I, for one, don’t want to go back to being a slave again. I’ve tasted freedom. I’m proud today to stand in this country, as a free man, speaking to free people.

Of course they’re going to chose freedom. Because freedom is a God given right to all human beings. That being said, we, the people of South Sudan, for sixty years we went through a lot at the hands of the sitting governments in Khartoum. They slaughtered three and a half million South Sudanese. They enslaved thousands. They turned their arms and guns on the people in the Nuba Mountains. They turned their arms and guns on the people in the Blue Nile. And the world came to their senses by saying what happened in western Sudan in Darfur region is genocide."

Simon Deng will be traveling to Washington, DC this week and next week to "walk barefoot" through the Senate and talk to every Senator on Capitol Hill, so that they can't feign ignorance or pretend they were unaware of the coming massacre.

"The Secretary of State, a month ago, Hillary Clinton, said that the problem in South Sudan is a “ticking time bomb”. We don’t want to go back. We don’t want to go back to Islam. We don’t want to go back to enslavement. We don’t want to go back to arabization. We are proud as Africans in that continent. Sudan is the land of the blacks.

And that is why we don’t want to turn our backs to our brothers in Darfur. … after southern Sudan becomes independent next year we’re still going to be their voice because they’re being victimized the way we’re being victimized in that country. We’re going to Washington to ask our (United States) government that CPA that we talk about it is the legacy of the American government and, I’m speaking directly to President Obama, he was there with me when we talked about the issue in the South Sudan as a senator, shoulder to shoulder, when we talked about the Southern Sudan. I’m asking you, why are you distancing yourself from me, why are you distancing yourself from the issue of Sudan? Why are you putting heavyweights to be envoys here and envoys there, and you’re sending someone who has to learn on the job to be the envoy, knowing the magnitude of the problem in the Sudan? (more here.)"

Sudan's oil-producing south is 66 days away from the scheduled start of a politically sensitive referendum on whether to secede or stay part of Sudan, a vote promised in a 2005 peace deal that ended decades of civil war with the north.

Sudan's Muslim north and its south have still not agreed on the position of their shared border and analysts fear conflict could re-erupt in contested zones, some of which contain oil.

"There will not be UN peacekeepers on the buffer zone, it's unrealistic," Alain le Roy, UN Undersecretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations, told journalists shortly after concluding a meeting with representatives from the African Union and several other countries in the Ethiopian capital.

"The common borderline is too wide and (it) is not realistic to deploy troops," he added.

LONG WAR

Diplomats from the UN and the AU have announced that there will be months of "intensive" talks starting with a five-day meeting in Khartoum that begins Sunday aimed at reaching a consensus over the contested oil region of Abyei.

The U.N. has 10,000 peacekeepers stationed in Sudan, not counting its joint mission with the African Union in the western province of Darfur.

Most of the 10,000 are in the south and in three former civil war battle ground areas along the border. More than 2 million people died during the two-decade long war between Sudan's Islamic north and the south, where most are Christians or follow traditional religions.

Southern officials have accused Khartoum of arming militias to provoke conflict and demonstrate the south cannot govern itself ahead of the 2011 secession poll, scheduled for January 9.

Ambassador John Bolton explained it this way:

Although the conflict between Khartoum and Darfur has dominated the news in recent years, the proximate cause for dissolving the country now is the postponed but still simmering conflict between Mr. Bashir's Islamicist central government and the Christian and animist South. For decades, the South resisted Khartoum's efforts to impose its religious law on the entire country. Then, in 2005, the George W. Bush administration put this conflict on hold through the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA). While the CPA halted the ongoing genocide against the South, it was only a truce, not a lasting peace. Critical to gaining the South's agreement was the commitment to a referendum in January 2011, when the South could vote whether to remain part of Sudan or become independent.

That referendum is now the main focus. Neutral observers almost unanimously think a free and fair referendum would produce an overwhelming pro-independence vote. Those same observers think Mr. Bashir's government will do almost anything, including resorting to military force, to prevent losing the South and its huge oil and other natural resources.

[...]

Wrenching disagreements within the Obama administration are reinforcing the impression that our president is not willing to confront the Khartoum government. Mr. Obama's "open hand" policy toward rogue states, which has failed so notably with Iran and North Korea, is similarly failing in Sudan. Mr. Obama's special Sudan envoy, retired Air Force Gen. Scott Gration, has essentially cuddled up to Mr. Bashir, hoping he can thereby persuade Khartoum not to use military force. Mr. Obama's meetings with Southern Sudan leaders and others at the United Nations General Assembly's opening have not produced major breakthroughs.

The Organization of the Islamic Conference supports the murderous Muslim regime of Sudan. Hence the UN supports the murderous Muslim regime of Sudan. This is genocide. This is jihad. Millions dead over the past twenty years.

I have marched, rallied, and protested at the UN with former slaves in Sudan in front of the UN. Simon Deng and fighters for freedom have marched from New York's United Nations building to Washington DC year after year to to call attention to the referendum in Southern Sudan, the genocide being perpetrated against the people of Darfur, and the continuation of slavery and other horrific human rights violations thoughout the country.The sillies in Hollywood speak out against the genocide in Darfur, yet remain silent as to the murderers and their ideology.

The left and the Islamic supremacists call us racists while they smile and sanction the wholesale slaughter of blacks, Christians, moderate Muslims, women, and children. Where are the African American leaders? The lefturd leaders? The human rights advocates? Damn them. Damn them all.

Sudan’s oil-producing south is 66 days away from the scheduled start of a politically sensitive referendum on whether to secede or stay part of Sudan, a vote promised in a 2005 peace deal that ended decades of civil war with the north.

Link:

Two years ago, Al Arabiya producer Nabil Kassem was asked to put together a documentary film on Darfur. What he witnessed there, and recorded in this film, were scenes of unspeakable brutality and untold suffering, scenes he thought would surely wake up an Arab public all too willing to let Darfur pass by. But 'Jihad on Horseback' never made it across the airwaves. Watch part 1 of the film to see perhaps the most provocative Arab documentary ever made.

The Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court in The Hague has again publically alleged that the Government of Sudan is engaged in an ongoing genocide against non-Arab tribes of Darfur. The Sudanese authorities prevented the flow of food to the camps for internally displaced persons (IDPs) and disrupted relief operations, said an aide of the chief prosecutor. ...

[Islam Shalaby] said the government changed its tactics from directly attacking people with weapons to creating difficult conditions for them to survive in. Shalaby said that what is happening in Darfur are not isolated events but consistent government policy that is well thought out and implemented systematically.